ICFTU OnLine. 25 November 1996. The ICFTU, which tends to reflect
the social democracy of more developed nations, calls a meeting labor
representatives to define a policy in preparation for the WTO's
first ministerial conference in Singapore. ICFTU supports
linking a social clause of basic labor rights to capitalist trade
agreements.

From Lori Wallach, Global Trade Watch, 13 December 1996. At the
Singapore WTO Ministerial Meeting the US capitulated on labor
standards. The U.S. did not even get its initial request
for a working group on the relationship between labor standards
and trade on the table. The Clinton administration's WTO labor
rights push was a ploy to get labor support for fast track to
expand NAFTA and the WTO.

By Martin Khor, Director of the Third World Network, 13 January
1997. WTO's first Ministerial Conference in Singapore exposed a
growing rift: developing countries are against linking labor
standards to the WTO because it gives rich countries unfair
advantage over the South, allows them to dictate the South's
domestic policies, and use trade penalties to ensure compliance.

By Radha d'Souza, 4 November 1997. Labor has always had two faces.
From its inception, capitalist enterprises have treated labour as
a commodity to be bought and sold at the labour market. Workers
on the other hand have sought to emphasis its human face - that
it cannot be reduced to yet another statistical table that can be
monitored through monetarist regimes. The Philadelphia Declaration,
the founding document of the ILO, states labour is not a commodity.

By David Bacon, 29 November 1999. The AFL-CIO agrees with Clinton
that the WTO, which promotes international capitalism, should
link a social clause with trade agreements. This social democratic
theory that worker's rights trickle down from capitalism is
challenged by militant labor's insistence that social needs are
primary, and by labor in less developed countries which insists
they should not be subject to the needs of the developed world.

European Commission Denies Australian Press Report. ICEM
Update..., no. 29/1997, 30 April 1997. The plan to link ILO's
basic labor conventions with capitalist trade agreements may be
loosing support, even in the developed world.